The
Inside Story
Interview with Michael Donnelly, author of
Awakening Curry Buckle
Q: Curry Buckle's powers may
seem fantastic to some, yet they also seem within the realm of possibility.
How did you intend it?
Fantasy literature is popular, but most of it ultimately is escapist--that
is, there is little point to the wand-waving and spells, and those with the
special powers haven't earned it in any meaningful way. I say that if
a person can tear the shrink-wrap off of 'reality', then the true magic
begins. This book is fiction, but it's as true as I could make it.
Q: Where did the idea for Awakening Curry Buckle come from?
Imagine, if you will, an enlightened Buddhist master in the high mountains
of Tibet. In his arms a young monk lays, dying. The wizened old
lama foresees that his young disciple is destined to be reborn in the West,
and he transfers a measure of his own spiritual power to this soul as it
departs the body. This was the image that prompted me to write this
book.
Q: And
Curry Buckle is born to a family of pumpkin farmers in the San Juan Islands.
Right.
This is barely hinted at in the book,
but my central idea derives from the Communist invasion of Tibet, and their
brutal eradication of a culture that had kept ancient embers of
soul-knowledge glowing through the long dark ages. Perhaps the time
has come to spread these secrets back into the world. What if the
brutality of the invaders is, on a deeper level, fanning the flames of world
compassion and self-realization?
Q: The main characters—Darwin Bownes, Curry Buckle, and Keeley Uncas—feel alienated from their peer group. How common is this for high-schoolers?
Alienation is not just a teenage thing, though it’s felt acutely by those
transitioning to adulthood. Curry doesn’t mind so much being a social reject, or even being ignored by his own family. It’s his sense of alienation from his inner self that he struggles with. Perhaps that’s the root of all alienation.
Q: You’ve made a shrewd and despicable villain of the school principal, Emil Krogstrand. Aren’t school principals more likely to be unsung heroes in the lives of students?
Of course, and I know of principals who are major heroes. Krogstrand is simply payback for a principal who gave me grief—we gave each other grief—in high school.
Q: In what way?
I found high school, in general, monumentally boring. As a way to keep occupied and out of the principal's office, I self-published a collection of poems, opinion, and drawings on the principal’s mimeograph machine when he wasn’t looking. Next thing I knew he’d expelled me for the rest of my senior year. Not the first or last time my writing landed me in trouble.
Q: When Curry Buckle speaks in the voice of Swami Curryban Bucklananda, where do his insights come from?
From his intuition. Intuitive knowledge is limitless, and it’s the wellspring of discovery in all fields of endeavor. Saints, sages, and mystics throughout the ages have developed scientific techniques for opening the inner eye of intuition. The term scientific denoting that anyone can repeat the experiment and get the same results…in proportion to the effort made.
Q: Until now you’ve written for adults. [editor’s note: Michael Donnelly’s debut mystery novel False Harbor will be released by Windstorm Creative in
Spring 2006] Why did you write Awakening Curry Buckle for young adults?
I was heavily into researching and drafting my next mystery when the idea for Awakening Curry Buckle came along…with such force that it demanded to be written. I had no idea it would be such a long detour—nearly two years. I hadn’t expected that writing for a younger audience requires the same careful dedication to craft—rewrite after rewrite—as does quality adult literature. It may be that fewer teens are reading now, but those who do read are capable of handling ideas well beyond what they encounter in the standard curriculum. I wanted to honor them as readers, and create a story that would hold together for adults too.
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